louiscatorze.com

Je crie, donc je suis

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Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, supreme ruler of Le Château, sworn enemy of canine foe and scourge of Ocado delivery drivers.

  • Qui Zoom qui?

    Cat Daddy has just had a Zoom call with his fellow volunteers at the food bank. It has been a while since lockdown, so we had forgotten what a pain in the arse Louis Catorze is during Zoom calls.

    Unfortunately, Catorze had not forgotten.

    I was having dinner in the kitchen when I received a frantic WhatsApp SOS from Cat Daddy; saying, “Can you please remove him?” I tiptoed into the front room to find Catorze kneading the blanket next to Cat Daddy, rear end pointing at the laptop, screaming, whilst Cat Daddy desperately tried to Act Normal.

    I scooped up Catorze, took him away and shut the door. I then went back to my dinner and, the moment I sat down, Catorze started to scream outside the closed door, wanting to go back to his papa. (Hopefully this will answer any questions about why we don’t shut him out of our bedroom at night.)

    Him: “Mwah!”

    Me, from the kitchen: “Shush!”

    Him: “Mwahhhh!”

    Me: “Shush!”

    Him: “MWAHHHHHHHHHHH!”

    After a few minutes of this, I couldn’t stand it any longer. The little sod was refusing to follow me to another part – LITERALLY ANY PART – of the house, and clearly had no intention of shutting up. I didn’t know what else to do, so I scooped him up again and kicked him out at The Front so that I could eat, and Cat Daddy could talk, in peace.

    I know, I know: putting a manic cat out at The Front unsupervised, during Mercury Retrograde (yes, it’s here again), is asking for trouble. But it would only be for a short while, until the end of the call. Hopefully Catorze would tire of being a nuisance and would settle down outside and watch the world go by, as he has on many occasions.

    The next WhatsApp SOS messages from Cat Daddy were as follows (just the photos, no words):

    Oh dear God.
    OH DEAR GOD.

    I opened the front door and called Catorze in, but he wasn’t having any of it. And I certainly wasn’t about to scramble around among gravel and plants trying to catch a cat who didn’t want to be caught. So I went back to my dinner.

    Cat Daddy later emerged from the front room, cradling his boy in his arms. Apparently Catorze hadn’t left the window the whole time, and had screamed and screamed all the way through the call. And, somehow, it’s all my fault. Oh yes, the boys have bonded over this: Catorze is pretending to be traumatised by his experience at The Front and, like a massive sucker, Cat Daddy is falling for it.

    Oh and, after the call came to an end, Catorze was happy to follow my instructions and come with me to wherever I wanted.

    The next time Cat Daddy has a Zoom call, he’s on his own. In fact, I’m tempted to fling Catorze in like a grenade, lock the door and leave them to it.

  • Traverser la tempête

    We had a storm a couple of nights ago. I know this not because I heard the rain, but because Louis Catorze woke me at hourly intervals, absolutely drenched, to roll the water off onto the bed, before going back outside to soak up more water and repeat the whole process.

    I used to joke about Catorze being like Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump (younger followers: ask your parents) during storms, although this was just for dramatic effect and I have never seen him behave in such a way. I have only ever witnessed him excitedly running outside upon hearing the rain, then sitting calmly in a sheltered spot and listening. (That said, his rodent kills often take place during storms, so he must have a touch of the unhinged about him.)

    However, Cat Daddy has just told me that, during the most recent storm, he’d heard Catorze howling outside. Not screaming or whining, but that full-on, guttural cat fight sound. As far as he was aware, it was just one cat’s voice. So either evil Catorze had intimidated the other cat into silence (a bit mean) or he was howling on his own (just plain bizarre).

    Me, hopefully: “Could it have been … some other cat?”

    Cat Daddy, falteringly: “Well … I suppose I didn’t SEE a cat, so … y’know …”

    Sigh. There was no point in trying to kid ourselves. It was him.

    Oscar Wilde was right all along:

    “At first art imitates life.” Yes, although calling Le Blog “art” is a bit of a reach.

    “Then life will imitate art.” This is where we are at the moment.

    “Then life will find its very existence from the arts.” I don’t know what this means, but this is the part that scares me the most; the thought of all life starting and ending with Catorze is the exact opposite of what we want/need as a society.

    I don’t have photographic evidence of him goading the storm gods, because I have no wish to go out in the rain at 2am with my phone. However, here is a picture of him being all cute and playful with his papa, which shows what a liar and a faker he is:

    Nice try, but we don’t believe you.

  • Le spectacle doit continuer

    It was a full moon last night, as well as the start of Mercury Retrograde. And the chaos began in the morning, with an enormous rabbit lolloping through the Zone Libre and Louis Catorze, despite being half its size, trying his luck anyway. The goldfinches at the feeder did not approve of this one bit and screeched up a storm, destroying the neighbours’ hopes for a peaceful start to their weekend. Sorry, people of TW8.

    Cat Daddy and I were supposed to have gone to Southampton yesterday, with Puppy Daddy and Cocoa the babysit cat’s daddy, for the football. However, all Premier League matches have been called off in light of recent events in the U.K. – or, rather, ONE in particular. Cat Daddy is the most disappointed of us all and, to prove this, bought two cases of Louis Jadot from Majestic Wine on Friday. I daren’t look to see how many bottles are left.

    The one fragment of silver lining is that Catorze is thoroughly enjoying Cat Daddy being home. Whilst other events have been cancelled, It’s business as usual as far as Boys’ Club is concerned. The little sod has been pitter-pattering from Storm Watch to his papa’s lap and back again, stopping only to sip occasionally from his outdoor bar. I had spent the last week wondering why on earth he hadn’t been drinking any water from his glass and debating whether or not a vet visit were required when, in fact, there is nothing wrong with him and he’s just been doing this:

    If you knew what our river water was like, you’d do the same.

    Here at Le Château everything is as harmonious as ever – well, as harmonious as it can be when one is living with a demon cat who wants to devour our souls – but, the instant we step out into the world, it all feels rather odd. Nobody quite knows what to do or say, especially us non-royalists who aren’t feeling the pain and the grief but also don’t want to be rude. So we just nod sagely when anyone says anything about the Queen. It’s very strange hearing people refer to “the King”, though. For the last eight years, the only king we have known has been our little Sun King.

    Here is Catorze, pictured during Storm Watch and right after the Zoom call with Cat Daddy’s boozy pub mates. His glare in the first photo is to remind us that he is the only king we need:

    “You will bow down to MOI.”
    Just catching up with les gars.

    And, if he had to choose a queen to rule alongside him, it would be this one:

    Picture from boredpanda.com.

  • Des affaires importantes

    The Queen is no longer with us. However, it’s the same old nonsense here at Le Château as far as the King is concerned.

    Cat Daddy and I went out the other day, at around 4:30pm, with the intention of feeding Louis Catorze before leaving. But we completely forgot.

    The little sod was sound asleep on the outdoor sofa when we left the house and, when he’s not annoying us, it’s actually quite easy to forget to feed him. We only remembered when we were at the pub and tucking into our own meal but, of course, by then, it was too late to do anything about it.

    As we journeyed back from our evening out, we chuckled wryly at the prospect of being greeted by an indignant, screaming cat. However, we opened the door to silence and emptiness. Cat Daddy went outside to look for Catorze but there was no sign of him.

    This was very unusual, especially as he hadn’t been fed. We were convinced that he would show up soon, bellowing at us for neglecting our duties, but he didn’t. When he still hadn’t returned in the time it had taken us to make some tea, I went out with my torch and searched the garden.

    Once again, he was nowhere to be found. Even Cat Daddy had started to worry by this point, and he feared that a red kite, whom he has seen hovering around lately, had managed to have Catorze as an amuse-bouche. As for me, I went to bed mentally planning Catorze’s WANTED poster and feeling a bit sick.

    I woke up the next morning, a few minutes before my alarm, to an outraged Catorze, and a message on my phone from Cat Daddy, sent at 00:03, saying that the little sod had just rolled in. I have since found out that, upon finally making an appearance, he scoffed down three scoops of Orijen (his allowance for the WHOLE DAY), sat purring on Cat Daddy’s lap for ten minutes and then went back out “on high alert, as if something were still outside”.

    So he wasn’t hungry. And the screaming, the wide-eyes and the circling of his empty bowl like a hungry great white shark, were all lies.

    Whatever ICB it was, so pressing that he disappeared all evening and only managed ten minutes of Boys’ Club, appears to be ongoing. Here he is, off again:

    En route to Twiggy the greyhound’s place.

    The Queen is dead; long live the King.

  • La limace (Partie 2)

    Oh. Mon. Dieu. There is a huge orange slug on our garden path, all mangled and mashed with its innards leaking out. And Louis Catorze has licked it.

    We have no idea how it came to be in such a state. Cat Daddy accused me of stepping on it, but I know I didn’t: the soles of my shoes are free from slug juice and, more importantly, there’s no way I would fail to see a huge orange slug. His shoes are also dry (Cat Daddy’s, I mean, not the slug’s). And, curiously, there are no juicy footprints leading away from the oozing corpse. But we can be certain that Catorze licked it. I saw him with my own eyes.

    Yes, we have Googled “Is slug juice toxic to cats?” And, yes, we now wish we hadn’t. The worst thing is that we can’t trust Catorze not to do it again, since he has previous when it comes to undesirable encounters with slugs and a general propensity for doing exactly the opposite of what we want.

    Meanwhile, the little sod is happily pitter-pattering around, appearing to be perfectly well. If he’s about to drop dead from slug juice poisoning, he doesn’t know (or care).

    We know where that tongue has been.

  • Les banderoles royales

    I am very disappointed to report that my alternative “God save the king” royal bunting didn’t work out.

    Alas, despite paying a premium for express delivery so that it would make Le Château the talk of the street during the jubilee, it didn’t arrive on time. When it did arrive, three days late, we weren’t home (because, obviously, we hadn’t planned for it to arrive on that day) and so we had to make the perilous, Dariénesque journey to the sorting office in Hounslow to collect it.

    When we collected it, Catorze’s face looked like this:

    What the hell?

    And, when they reworked it and – eventually, three weeks later, after some quite odd emails from them which read as if written by a semi-literate bot – sent me a digital proof to approve, it looked like this:

    WHAT THE HELL?

    Is it THAT difficult for someone to centre a picture? Well, ok, obviously it is.

    At that point I told them not to bother, so I asked for a full refund, and they happily obliged. Yes, happily. They seemed quite chipper about the fact that they’d given me shambolic service and a shambolic product.

    It’s such a shame as it would have been perfect not only for the jubilee but also for today, which is the birthday of the human Louis XIV. But, luckily, the little sod wouldn’t know whether or not we put up bunting and, if he did, he wouldn’t care.

    This was what I originally had in mind when I started my search for jubilee bunting:

    Hilariously, in the run-up to the jubilee these were all sold out.

    And somehow I feel that, even at the height of their naughtiness, the Sex Pistols (younger followers: ask your grandparents’ cooler friends) would have been less troublesome than Le Roi.

    Typical noblesse, sitting on their thrones and living a life of luxury whilst we peasants languish.

  • Les chiens renifleurs

    I am back at school and, last week, we had the usual fire safety training. (You’d think it were as simple as “Get everyone out and dial 999” but it’s much more complicated than that, and we have to renew the training every year.)

    One thing that absolutely blew our minds was finding out that there are fire investigation dogs who are able to identify whether or not a fire was started deliberately. My colleagues are all animal lovers* so the reaction was as one would imagine:

    “Oh my goodness!”

    “Wow!”

    “That’s so clever!”

    “How do they do that?”

    “Do you ask them to bark once for accident and twice for arson?”

    *My colleagues’ pets include Winston the tabby cat, Luna the calico cat, Waltham the Dalmatian, Frida the Dachshund, Baby and Henry the parrots and a trio of feral foster kittens who haven’t yet been named because they’ve only just arrived.

    Tony the fire training officer eventually said, “Right, that’s enough about the dogs. Can we move on now?” But we didn’t. And, during our coffee break, I was typing “fire investigation dogs” into Google and reading the results to a captivated staff room.

    Not only can the dogs sniff out whether or not accelerant was used to start a fire, but they can also locate whereabouts on the site it was used, including across multiple rooms/floors and in unobtrusive locations. What unbelievably clever and helpful doggies. Whereas cats, I’m sure, wouldn’t be so obliging. It’s not that they can’t do clever things. They just don’t feel like it.

    The fire investigation dogs were probably the second most important and talked-about part of the day, with the first being, erm, the fact that our school can’t fit cars, staff, students AND the fire engine into our tiny car park without trapping people in close proximity to the burning building. So we need to rethink our emergency assembly procedures.

    Anyway, here is Simba, one of the fire investigation dogs who featured in our training (pictured here in his work uniform):

    Good boy.

    And here is Louis Catorze, who would probably start a fire on purpose if he knew that it would send big, strapping firemen rushing to us:

    Bad boy.

  • Le cri de la panthère noire

    Brentford FC have had two games in the last week, and Cat Daddy and I have just listened to one of the post-match podcasts by our friends Billy and Dave, who run Beesotted, the Brentford fanzine.

    Billy has quite a loud, booming voice so, when the podcast is on, we can’t really hear much else around us. An atomic bomb could drop and we wouldn’t realise.

    You know which way this is going, don’t you?

    During the ninety-minute podcast I was making dinner and, an hour or so in, I decided to put some empty glass jars in the recycling. As soon as I opened the door, Louis Catorze ran in. The little sod had been out at The Front the whole time and, because we’d been listening to the podcast at full volume, we hadn’t heard the screaming.

    Unfortunately, two blokes in the park clearly HAD heard it. And they were looking over and laughing.

    As I continued to tidy up after dinner, more stuff needed to be put out for recycling. I didn’t want to go out there in case the blokes were still in the park and I couldn’t face them again, but Cat Daddy persuaded me that they had probably gone home and/or that they may not have been laughing at Catorze anyway. And, like an idiot, I believed him.

    When I went out again, I saw that the two blokes had been joined by a friend. And the THREE of them were looking over and laughing.

    Oh. Mon. Dieu.

    I wish I could say that this were the most embarrassing Catorzian thing ever. However, regretfully, I know that it’s only the most embarrassing Catorzian thing this week.

    On his docking station, charging up for the next round of nonsense.

  • Ce sont des temps mystérieux

    I have been watching a series on Prime Video called Still A Mystery. Some of the crimes featured are genuine mysteries, as in, nobody has the slightest idea of who is responsible. However, others are not mysteries at all. Quite the opposite, in fact; it’s blindingly obvious who did it, but somehow justice is not served due to a useless police force and/or the culprit just being a slippery little shite.

    We have such a non-mystery on our hands at the moment.

    Someone has bumped one of the solar-powered bulbs on Cat Daddy’s light show, and now it’s not working. He is not impressed, and the Unrepeatable Expletives have been flowing from his mouth like lava from Vesuvius. Neither he nor I saw it happen (the bulb, I mean, not Vesuvius). But the fact that this wonky bulb happens to be directly on Louis Catorze’s ICB route, cannot be a coincidence.

    One of these bulbs is not like the others.

    It’s Catorze. He’s knocked it with his silly arse on his way to Twiggy the greyhound’s place. And, whilst Cat Daddy knows that this is fixable, he would far rather NOT replace a broken bulb than replace a broken bulb.

    Cat Daddy did once manage to capture this piece of evidence during alfresco Boys’ Club. Circumstantial evidence … or beyond reasonable doubt?

    Bastard cat.

  • Il pleut des cordes

    It had to happen sooner or later, and on Wednesday it finally came into effect: just like other water suppliers before them, Thames Water have implemented a hosepipe ban. We are not allowed to use a garden hose to water plants, fill a paddling pool or clean vehicles. However, we are allowed to use one to water new plants (“new” = planted in the last four weeks), clean a leisure boat (?) and clean a vehicle if visiting customers. I know. I KNOW.

    Cat Daddy and I don’t like having to empty the washing-up bowl into the shrubbery several times a day, but we understand why we have to do it. And, so far, la personne royale has escaped an unceremonious soaking, despite the fact that he insists on choosing a new and unobtrusive sleeping spot in the shrubbery every time he goes out.

    The day after the hosepipe ban, we had torrential rain for most of the day. Obviously, this is a good thing. However, the bad news is that rain turns Louis Catorze into a complete and utter maniac. Not that he really needs an excuse.

    Catorze LOVES storms. When it rains, whilst his more normal feline counterparts are curled up indoors, he is underneath the outdoor table listening to the rain fall around him, or out somewhere conducting the kind of ICB that can only be conducted in the rain. I wouldn’t put it past him to be able to bury a human body in a thunderstorm, unaided and with no tools.

    This particular storm started in the early hours of Wednesday morning. I was fully aware of it all the way because Catorze spent several hours going outside, coming in to jump all over me and roll his gross, wet body all over the bed, then going back out again to repeat the cycle.

    After pounding down relentlessly all morning, the rain finally stopped mid-afternoon. But Sa Maj wasn’t done. He was still going outside but, this time, gadding about in the still-wet undergrowth and then returning to roll the water onto me/us/the furniture.

    Sodden little sod.

    I heard Cat Daddy’s voice saying, “Ugh, Louis, look at the STATE of you! You’re drenched!”

    Catorze responded with his customary “Mwah!” then promptly went out to gad about in the undergrowth again.

    I have given up pondering whether he will turn normal one day, or slow down in his old age. He won’t. And, even though he gives us the creeps, we can’t help but love him for it.

    Taking a short break from goading the rain gods.

  • Une histoire de deux Louis

    Louis Catorze saw the vet on Tuesday. He’s had a good run this summer, with his last steroid shot being on 30th June, so we are glad we’ve been able to stretch it out until now.

    As ever, the appointment couldn’t possibly have been straightforward and had to be a total comedy. (Funny for everyone else, I mean. Certainly not for me.)

    This was the sequence of events on that morning:

    1. Feed and water Catorze, as usual, then wait for him to join me on sofa.

    2. Hear him gadding about in soft plastics recycling box in the dining room and figure that, as long as I can still hear him, I will be able to locate him when it’s time to go.

    3. Gadding-about noises slow to a gentle rustle.

    4. Check dining room, just to be sure.

    5. No Catorze. Assume he has teleported out.

    6. Search house and garden. Conscious of time (appointment in thirty minutes’ time) and start to feel anxious.

    7. Wake Cat Daddy and ask him to come downstairs and act as bait to flush out Catorze. He is not pleased.

    8. Final sweep of dining room, turning every metaphorical stone in ultra-meticulous CSI fashion. Eventually find Catorze asleep in Deliveroo bag.*

    9. Cat Daddy is even more furious that I made him get up for nothing.

    10. Bag up Catorze and schlep him to the vet.

    11. Arrive at vet practice and Catorze emits a particularly long, rasping scream, startling a dog and his human who is paying their bill.

    12. To break awkward silence following scream, I say, “Shush, Louis!” Dog pitter-patters over to me.

    13. Dog Daddy: “Oh, is your cat called Louis? So is my dog!”

    14. Catorze screams some more. Louis the dog rests his chin on my knee as if to offer me support in this excruciating situation.

    15. Vet comes into waiting room and calls, “Louis, please?”

    16. Louis the dog obediently pitter-patters into the examination room despite having already been seen.

    Is this exceptional responsiveness from Louis the dog … or the ultimate in Catorzian mind control, with the little sod commanding his canine counterpart to take a bullet for him?

    Anyway, apart from all that, everything is as it should be. I mentioned to the vet that Catorze’s mats were returning (although none were visible at the appointment, having inexplicably vanished the night before), and she said that we needn’t be concerned unless we could see Catorze struggling to groom certain areas (no) or having difficulty running and jumping (HELL, no).

    The vet also checked his front right paw, where he’d managed to get a blob of pungent plant sap on himself a few days ago and now it’s left a hole. Again, nothing to worry about.

    It was a relief to discover that this was plant sap. Initially I thought one of the neighbours had finally snapped and put down poison for him.
    Post-sap hole.

    When we arrived back home, Cat Daddy made his boy do the Chubbing Up Dance when he found out his new, meaty weight of 3.34kg. And, at the time of writing this, they were both enjoying Boys’ Club somewhere.

    To scrape some positives from the situation – well, I have to try – at least Le Roi is doing well. Let’s hope that this continues as summer draws to a close and his party season starts.

    *Cat Daddy and I have only used Deliveroo once (during that fateful weekend away when he set that kettle on fire), and it was such a shambolic experience that we haven’t used it since. So how we came to have a Deliveroo bag is beyond me.

  • Le Roi est timbré: vive Le Roi!

    I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but Royal Mail (non-Brits: ask your British friends) have launched a set of stamps (younger followers: ask your parents) featuring a cat design:

    Photos from metro.co.uk.

    My initial joy at their inclusion of a black cat among their number, soon turned to disappointment when I looked closely and saw that it had white paws. Now, don’t get me wrong: I love black and white cats, and they fully deserve their place in the set of stamps. But come on. Why leave out black cats?

    Almost, but not quite.

    I then noticed that each cat was carrying out a different action, e.g. “Siamese grooming”, “Ginger cat playing” and so on. “Black cat communing with evil spirits” or “Black cat sneering at your patheticness and wishing you would just die” wouldn’t really have been in keeping with the generally upbeat theme of the stamps, which perhaps explains it. This wasn’t an error of omission. The person who created the stamps is probably a black cat survivor and therefore knew exactly what they were doing.

    Louis Catorze, however, is not impressed. And he would like to know whether a stamp would still be legal tender if one were to, erm, colour bits with black ink and add white Tipp-Ex fangs.

    My very talented sister created this unique lino print of Sa Maj, which I think would be perfect on a stamp. What would you name it, if you could? “Black cat …” doing what exactly?

    The scruffy misshapenness isn’t a stylistic technique. He actually looks like this.

  • Un club qui ne m’accepte pas pour membre

    Louis Catorze had an absolute blast on Thursday night. Not only does he enjoy the company of gentlemen, but he actually seems FEED on it, in the same way that, erm, a demonic entity is made more powerful if you fear it. He spent much of the evening sitting on the back of the sofa listening to the conversation, only leaving once or twice to attempt to escape out at The Front. And, when that failed, he went back to the boys.

    And it seems that the boy-love is continuing because, when I took a cup of tea to Cat Daddy in the morning, I walked into this:

    Belly rub and a bit of fang.

    Cat Daddy, with his eyes fixed on his boy and without even looking at me: “Just leave the tea and go.”

    I ignored him and sat on the bed anyway. Catorze glared at me, mwahhed perniciously and then left the room.

    This is the harsh reality of Boys’ Club, Mesdames et Messieurs. Or, rather, just Mesdames.

    Messieurs, as you were.

  • Les spiritueux vieillis

    It’s happening! The Rum and Whisky Club, aka High Spirits, will be hosting its inaugural reboot – if, indeed, a reboot can be inaugural – tonight, at Le Château.

    I know that there are other cat-loving gentlemen reading this, who would love to attend. But, since it’s not possible, here are the details. Perhaps doing one or more of the same things, on the same day, will make you feel a part of it?

    Time: 7:30pm GMT until whenever the last attendee staggers home.

    Drink of the day: Abhainn Dearg whisky, which I bought Cat Daddy for his birthday (but he drank it all so he’s had to buy a second bottle for The Club).

    Menu: A variety of Scottish cheeses with oatcakes.

    Activities: Drinking, stroking Louis Catorze, more drinking, admiring the inordinate amount of rocks that Cat Daddy has collected during various holidays.

    Playlist: “God, I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.” (I would put money on Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd featuring at some point during the evening.)

    I will be brushing Catorze thoroughly in preparation for this auspicious occasion. He is very much looking forward to receiving the gentlemen, mainly because he thinks they are all coming to see him.

    “Messieurs, I’ve been expecting vous.”